cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Export to PDF does not exports a previous version of the report

Former Member
0 Kudos

We have a VB.NET application that uses crystal reports. Here is the os/tools info

Development environment

Windows 7

Visual Studio 2010

VB.NET

Crystal Reports 2008.

Test Environment:

Windows XP

Client Environment

Windows XP

We recently rolled out a new version of the application into user machines. As a part of the new release a misspelled word "notce" was replaced by "notice". We installed the application of test machines. The report prints both in preview mode , direct export to PDF and manual export to pdf by pressing the EXPORT button correctly. However on one of the users' client machines, the following is happening:

1. Report prints correctly to the screen. The word "notice" shows up correctly

2. When the same report displayed on the screen (with correct spelling of the word notice) is exported to PDF, the PDF version displays "notce".

3.Also when the report is exported directly to PDF, the resulting pdf shows the misspelled word "notce"

We have checked the version of the application on the client report and it is the same as the ones on the test client. Also the fact that the report displays correctly, points us in the direction that the export to PDF feature is using some kined of cached template or file. We have also reinstalled the application. The same behaviour is still happening. We ran the disk clean and deleted all temporary files. Still the same behaviour happens. Please let me know how I can fix the issue on this client's laptop.

Also if you could let me know what folder is used by the export functionality to export CR to PDF. My suspicion is that the old files from previous version with the misspelled word are still somewhere on this client's machine.

Thanks

Jay

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

0 Kudos

Only version supported in VS 2010 is CR for VS 2010 which is Beta so do not publish to a production server.

Do not upgrade your CR 2008 application to VS 2010. There is no support for it an no plans on adding it to the the supported platforms.

If you must us VS 2010 then use only 3.5 Framework, 4.0 is not supported in CR 2008 either. But it's best effort only, no escalation path....

Thank you

Don

Former Member
0 Kudos

Would you at least tell me what folder is usedon an XP client to perform the export from CR to PDF? As I mentioned earlier, the report is printing properly. The export is using some older cached template or file that is sitting in the user's temp folders.

Thanks

Jay

0 Kudos

Hi Jay,

CR uses the windows temp folders as defined in the Environment Variables for the User and System. If it is a caching issue then just delete everything in the temp folders. Close CR and your app down first.

Odd though.... CR Designer doesn't cache this info.... Are you using a report with saved data?

Thank you

Don

Adam_Stone
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

i would run process monitor and see where the report is being loaded for the different workflows you described.

Former Member
0 Kudos

I deleted all the files in the user's temp folders. I still see the same behaviour. The data on the report is correct. The problem is the TEXT that is embedded in the report. That text was misspelled in previous version and was corrected in this version. The report in the preview mode shows the correct ed text. However when you export to PDF, the text is misspelled. That is why I thought the PDF is created based on an old cached template or file that is still residing on user's laptop.

Jay

0 Kudos

Did you have this problem before updating to VS 2010?

Thank you

Don

Former Member
0 Kudos

This is a new report that has been created after we upgraded to 2010. The report itslf looks good when it is printed, previewed or even exported to EXCEL. However when we export it to PDF, the misspelled word shows up in the report. The misspelled word was a defect in the initial version of this report which was fixed in the currnt version. All data shows up correctly and the print date/time and user who printed it show up on the pdf correctly. The only difference between the current and previous version of the report is the misspelled word "notce" which was replaced by "notice". If somebody can tell me how CR exports the report to PDF, that would help a lot.

ted_ueda
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

There's more than one way to export to PDF.

You should specify workflow. I see no code here.

Sincerely,

Ted Ueda

former_member183750
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

I think since you are using CR 2008 with .NET 2010, we're all fighting pretty low ROI here. E.g.; don't. And since you now have CR 2008, you can not even install CRVS2010 Beta on this box. See the requirements as described in the sticky thread at the top of this forum.

My recommendation; wait for CRVS2010 to RTM - probably by the end of next week (this week if we're lucky).

Ludek

0 Kudos

Hello,

You say the word was corrected and replaced. Is this a static text object or a database field?

If it is a static object and works in everywhere except when exporting to PDF I would look at your code. You may be loading it from an old location or instance before the report was fixed.

As a test, in your app export the report to RPT format, verify it shows the correct word spelling and then export that report to PDF.

Do you still see the mis-spelt word?

Thank you

Don

former_member208657
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

This mispelled word issue seems a little fishy here. As Ted mentioned there is no code listed so it is tough for us to tell you exactly what is happening here. But I'm pretty certain it will be one of two things.

1. You are exporting a saved data copy of the report. Ensure you call the ReportDocument.Refresh() method after the Load() method.

2. You are loading a different copy of the report when you export vs. when you preview.

To confirm #2 I suggest using Process Monitor. You'll want to look for the first instance of when YourReportName.rpt shows up in the Proc Mon log. We always make a copy of the .rpt file to use so there will only be a few instances of YourReportName.rpt in the log file. If these are not identical file paths then you should have your answer.

Former Member
0 Kudos

First, the misspelled word is a test object and not data.

Second, all data display correctly.

Third, text object is displaying the old misspelled word.

Fourth, I have eliminated the possibility that problems in of my pdf export routine cause this issue by exporting directly from Crystal Reports Viewer. I print the report to the crystal report viewer. The report looks good. The text object is spelled correctly. Then I click the Crystal Reports viewer's export button in the left upper corner and I export to both EXCEL and PDF. The excel export looks good. The pdf export is misspelled. All the export occurs internally in Crystal reports.

Fifth, I found outthat all users who have this problem have the ADOBE PDF writer installed. I am just suspicious that ADOBE writer is interferring with Crystal export

Sixth, I cannot recreate this problem on any of our development and test machines. It only happens on end-user laptops.

Seventh, I changed the name of the report that had this problem and created a new version and installed on end-user laptop. The behaviour still persists. User saved the report as both RPT and PDF. RPT export looks good. PDF version has the spelling problem. Data on both reports is up-to-date and good. I copied the same RPT export to my PC and exported it to PDF, the pdf looks good. That is why I think something on the end-users laptops is causing the export to use some cached template.

One more thing I did was to change the report name in VB.NET project, recreated a new package and installed on end-user's laptop. The same exact problem is still there.

I have worked with Crystal Reports more than 15 years and I have never such a weird behaviour before. I know this sounds very weird. We are all baffled by what is happening.

former_member208657
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

That does seem like a very strange issue. All I can think of right now is to use a tool like Process Explorer to investigate both systems. Use proc explorer to investigate your .exe while you are performing the export to PDF action. Have a look at the DLL info for your process.

It is a bit of a manual process but start looking through for differences. The export dll we use for PDF is crxf_pdf.dll. Other things invovled are files like exportmodeller.dll and crtslv.dll. Keep your eye on file locations and versions.

Proc mon allows you to export the results to .txt format. You can open the file in Excel for some side by side comparisons if needed.

[Process Explorer|http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx]

Answers (3)

Answers (3)

Former Member
0 Kudos

I had a similar problem but all the fonts on my report were "Arial".

The solution to this problem is as follows:

In Visual Studio, when previewing a report, a small checkbox appears on the top of the report with the message "Save data in report". You need to UNCHECK this box before publishing your reports so that the data is from run time and not something that was previously saved.

That fixed my problem.

Regards,

Manzoor

Former Member
0 Kudos

Issue resolved

former_member208657
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Good find with the Calibri font! I was able to search our bug database for this and found an existing track on the problem. I'll need to investigate further to find out what work was done to address the problem.

ADAPT00806654

former_member208657
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

The notes I reviewed indicate this issue should have been resolved. There were a few mentions of conflicts with usp10.dll. We need a very specific version of usp10.dll for our text rendering to work correctly. Often Microsoft Office ships with a different usp10.dll and can cause problems with our product.

Use processexplorer to see which version and what location usp10.dll is being loaded. If it isn't from a Business Objects folder it is likely the wrong one.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Issue is resolved now. The problem was the font of the text object that was being displayed incorrectly. We found out that the Crystal Reports ADOBE converter for some reason does not process CALIBRI font well. The only text object that was in calibri was this text object. So we changed it to ARIAL and the PDF conversion works properly. Please log this as an issue for fix in development. Crystal PDF converter does not correctly convert texts in CALIBRI in Windows XP.

Thanks for all the help.